There was a turf fire blazing even on this hot June day in the Rector's study, and Maureen managed to step behind and whisper to Dominic, "I _know_. I didn't worry him by asking him. I told him stories instead. We've just got to be _brave_, Dom, boy, and keep his spirits up. We need not question about what we know. When I looked in his face, I felt that I could not utter a word, for his dear face told me. It was so very near the angels, so I had one good story which I told him, and I invented some more, and I vote that now we call Denis and Kitty and have some games and fun--not too noisy, you know--and I'll see the darling, darling Uncle to bed myself. He says I'm a born story-teller, but _I_ think I'm a born nurse. He shall be in bed before old 'Step' comes back. I'll manage that."
About nine o'clock Mrs. O'Brien returned. Her cold sort of beauty, for she was still comparatively young, had a triumphant gleam in it on this occasion. She ate a large supper heartily, and did not once inquire about her husband's state of health. Some years ago, when her husband's cough troubled her, she arranged a large luxurious room on the first floor for herself, but he continued to sleep, when he could sleep at all, in the bare apartment where he had lived with such happiness with his first dear wife. In this room Dominic and Denis and Kitty were born. In this room the first Mrs. O'Brien had passed on into the Holy City.
On this special night something induced Constance O'Brien to go up to her husband's bedroom. He was dropping asleep as she bounced in.
"Well, old man," she said, "you may as well know the truth. Your own money, all your insurances, in fact, every penny you possess, will go to your children and to no one else at your death, be it to-day or be it to-morrow. This is owing to your marriage settlement. It is well I have money of my own. Murphy astonished me by telling me that there would be altogether about ten thousand pounds, including, of course, your private means, to divide among your three children. It is as well I have my own drop, which is a trifle more than that. Let me tell you, Patrick--take it as a night-cap--that you have behaved in the most disgraceful way to me; but, anyhow, I have the pleasure of informing you that you cannot touch _one penny_ for Maureen. Yes, I _have_ that pleasure, little spiteful interloper. I never could abide her."